The arresting gear for an airplane that lands in a very short distance and is stopped by an arresting cable, such as a carrier-based airplane, conventionally includes a tail hook in the form of a unitary, relatively long, arm that is attached by a pivot coupled to a keel member, or a pair of keel members, of the airframe. The tail hook is generally stowed in an upper position either closely adjacent and outside of the skin of the underside of the fuselage or within a cavity in the skin. The tail hook swings down to a deployed position in which a hook on the end of the arm can be caught by an arresting cable. Conventional long arm tail hooks, which may include a damper and a deployment mechanism, generally require a long space within the skin.
The front end of a conventional long arm tail hook is generally attached to the airframe at a point relatively far forward of the rearmost end of the fuselage so that the rear end of the tail hook, when stowed, will not extend beyond the tail end of the fuselage. For airplanes having a single tail engine, such as many carrier-based fighters, the long arm tail hook can interfere with removal of the engine and often must be removed before the engine can be removed.
It is desirable to minimize the load placed on the nose gear of the aircraft during an arrested landing. The vertical location of the tail hook attachment to the airframe determines the loads generated by the arresting cable on the nose gear of the airplane during an arrested landing. In an arrested landing of an airplane, the load created by the arresting cable runs generally from the arresting cable through the attachment point of the tail hook to the airplane. Airplanes having a conventional arresting gear are generally attached at a point on the airframe vertically below the center of gravity. The low vertical attachment of the conventional arresting gear places a large vertical load on the nose gear, because the load line created by the arresting cable passes far below the center of gravity of the airplane.
Modern fighters may require the arresting gear to be enclosed within doors that open to allow the arresting gear to deploy. Many arresting gear configurations are unsuitable to provide this requirement since the closures would be at risk of damage by the cable or arresting hook during an arrestment with the doors opened.